Learn how we increased TED's page visits, video completion rates, and social engagement using our AI video localization solution.
Client
TED is a globally recognized brand that shares innovative ideas through powerful storytelling. TED's mission is to discover and spread ideas that spark conversation, deepen understanding, and drive meaningful change. Founded in 1984, TED has grown into a massive platform, streaming thousands of presentations to millions of viewers worldwide on a wide range of topics, including science, business, global issues, and personal development.
While most TED Talks are delivered in English, the majority of their audience resides in non-English-speaking regions. This language barrier has often limited the reach and impact of their content. Although TED has long offered subtitles as a way to make content accessible across languages, they recognized that some viewers prefer a full audio-visual experience in their native language. To meet diverse audience preferences and expand their multilingual offerings, TED explored dubbing as a complementary option to subtitles. This would allow them to cater to different content consumption habits while maintaining the inspirational quality of TED Talks across languages. Importantly, TED sought a solution to make their content more accessible without compromising the integrity and emotional impact of their presentations.
Challenge
TED required a localization solution that could preserve the integrity and emotional impact of their original content while making it accessible to a global audience. They sought a technology capable of producing high-quality, voice-cloned audio dubs that matched the speakers' lip movements naturally and accurately.
The technical requirements for the solution were quite high. At first glance, TED Talks appear straightforward: A single speaker talking to an audience. But the videos are deceptively complex. Any given talk may have speakers moving on-stage, multiple camera angles, facial occlusions from microphones and hand gestures, extreme closeups, lighting changes, emphasis and pauses while speaking, and audience noise.
Additionally, TED needed a partner who could leverage their existing network of translators and whose solution would seamlessly integrate into their existing localization workflows. TED's localization team had already invested considerable time and effort in coordinating the translation of content through their global volunteer translator community. Leveraging this existing body of high-quality translations was crucial to the success of the project.
Most importantly, TED needed a partner who understood the importance of maintaining the authenticity of each presentation, ensuring that the essence of the speaker’s message was not lost in translation. TED had spent considerable effort in securing every speakers’ full consent in adapting their videos, so retaining the emotional fidelity of their presentations was a key requirement.
Solution
Panjaya's AI-powered video adaptation platform emerged as the ideal solution for TED. Our technology is designed to create voice-cloned audio dubs, synchronized with lip movements across a range of angles, shot types, and lighting. We enable fine-grained control over the audio performance in order to match the dubbed audio to the body language of the speakers. This ensures that the original speakers' emotion and style are preserved, providing an authentic viewing experience for international audiences.
TED selected Panjaya not only because our platform preserved the emotional integrity of the original videos, but also because it offered precise editorial control over translations, allowing for the preservation of the translators' existing work, saving both time and money.
Implementation
The implementation process involved close collaboration between TED and Panjaya to adapt an initial selection of 8 TED Talks into Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, and Italian. This process included integration of existing translations, voice cloning to maintain the speakers' unique vocal qualities, and meticulous synchronization of lip movements to ensure natural delivery across different camera angles and dynamic speaking scenarios.
Results
Since the rollout, TED has seen remarkable improvements in engagement metrics relative to the previous, caption-only multilingual Talks.
- Views: A 115% increase in views of dubbed Talks, and 69% increase in non-English browser views
- Video Completions: A 2X increase in users completing videos
- Social Sharing: Nearly a 30% increase in shares
- Social Visibility: Highlight reels receiving over 10M views and 400K reel interactions
Testimonials
"Panjaya’s platform seamlessly integrated our existing translations, allowing us to maintain the high standards set by our global volunteer community. This not only preserved the quality of our content but also saved us significant time and resources."
— Helena Batt, Director of Localization, TED
"Accessibility of our talks is and always has been one of our core principles and, given our huge international user base, as well as explicit feedback we hear from our global audiences to translate not just our transcripts and subtitles as we have been for years, but also the audio itself, made this partnership a no-brainer. I’m excited because I really see this as the perfect application of AI – not using AI as an end in itself or just some random feature bolted onto an existing experience, but really using it as a means to solve real user problems in an integrated way that was never possible before."
— Tricia Maia, Head of Product, TED
Conclusion
Panjaya's AI-powered video adaptation platform is transforming the way TED's content is consumed globally. By maintaining the original style, charisma, and intent of the speakers in different languages, Panjaya is enhancing the reach and impact of TED Talks. As we continue to refine our platform and expand our language offerings, we are committed to helping content creators like TED tell their stories with passion and authenticity to audiences worldwide.
For more information on how Panjaya can transform your content and help you reach a global audience, Try Panjaya for Free.